[Baku]:I'm gonna try my hand at game reviews and see what comes of it and because my pc is running on radioactive hamster power I play most new games on a low resolution, you know, like real gamers
[COma]:Sipping coffee, smoking, listening to floyd, playing (old and new) so if it sucks you don't have to.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Dark Mysteries (A Gothic MOD) Review

Platform: PC

Genre: MOD (RPG)

MODs, they are one of the few things (beside fans) that can make a game live longer. Sometimes they give a few extra quests/levels, enhance (or de-enhance) the graphics, optimize the game or they are a total conversion of the game ... changing well... everything. But from to time, from the deepest bowels of creativity, a few people arise

in a golden aura while angels sing lullabyes at their feet. Oh yeah, and roses fall from the sky. THEY, are dudes gathered on the internet or whatever, who share a passion for one game and MODing. Combining theyr forces they will embark on a journey that will ... eat theyr time, nerves, but will make us all happy. These are the people who are able to make a MOD... a long MOD and blend it perfectly with the games story, setting, making you wonder if it's official add-on.

The MOD I'm talking about is Dark Mysteryes. A MOD for Gothic 1 (yeah that old crappy game that gets everyone saying "duuude, really?" when I play it over and over again) which introduces some new camps, a new and interesting secondary-main-plot-which-you-should-play-cuz-it's-absolutely-brilliant-hypen-hypen-hypen.

The setting is the same as Gothic 1, the penal colony, with some new magical caves that appeared out of nowhere... and other parts added, as you go through the story. The new camps added are the Miners Camp (near the Old Mine, you can actually join them), the Fanatic camp, The Smugglers camp, The Bandits Camp (actually it's the Gothic 1 bandit camp, but they don't all attack you on sight and there's actually something to do there) and the Orchunters Camp. The main story (of the MOD of course) consists of you finding out some Dark Misteryes (I'm not gonna spoil it) the only thing I'm gonna say is that you will meet the Primevils.

The zones added are absolutely brilliant, especially the Underground world. Some quests, things from gothic 1 that didn't make any sense got "upgraded". So anything you remember that didn't make sense, like dudes in a cave running away from u on sight... now have a role.

Of course this is just some heaven-descended people's ideas, but I liked them .. and they all fit the Gothic universe/setting, including the steroid-fed-catapult from the mine camp.

There are a lot of new weapons. From normal swords (some with new models) to weird 1 damage special swords and helmets have been included into the game. Besides the scroll and rune magic, now we have crystals (that work just like runes). I can't say much of the new spells, cause, as always, the mage/spelcaster class is the last one I play in a RPG, especially Gothic. Almost forgot, you can learn weapon forging and cooking as well.

3 comments:

One thing, why the sound of a character ( when he speeks) is kinda disabled or broken or smth, I add it all the patches n add-ons and so on,and stil the new guys are not making the least sound as the subtitles appear!!! Do u know smth about it???

I think they don't 'speak' cause the mod is primarily made by and for germans, they seem to understand this game rocks more than the rest of the world and are the biggest fanbase for the game, so they only made an english translation in words later for people like us who aren't germans, they never made one with sound in english, gotta just play it this way.Anyone may correct me if I'm wrong.I also play Gothic over and over again by the way, who cares about graphics when you are playing the best game in the world right ?Along with Gothic 2 of course.I just finished Velaya, the mod for Gothic 2 which I also highly recommend..that one also doesn't have sound in English, only in german but with english subtitles for the same reason.I was searching for mods for Gothic 1, after playing the game for about 12 times I embrace this mod with all my heart..I just started playing, found lots of new characters and i wept a little tear of joy..god how I love Gothic.. !!